


John & The Wolf

by prettyvk



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M, Teenlock, Were John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 22:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/971002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyvk/pseuds/prettyvk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If being a werewolf had been like it was depicted in stories, it wouldn’t have been so bad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	John & The Wolf

Sometimes, John envied Sherlock’s ability to block out the world, the way he could get lost inside his own thoughts so thoroughly that he wouldn’t notice another boring class had ended unless John dragged him to the next classroom for more of the same. Granted, it was far less pleasant when what he didn’t notice was that John was talking to him, but at least it wasn’t because he didn’t care.

Of course, that ability would not have helped solve John’s problem. It wasn’t the outside world he really needed to escape; instead, it was his own mind.

If being a werewolf had been like it was depicted in stories, it wouldn’t have been so bad. Three days of running through the countryside at night and howling at the moon – he could deal with that. Especially since, most of the time, he wasn’t running alone. To have an excuse to be out with Sherlock was always exhilarating, and those nights it wasn’t just the thrill of the run that caused John’s heart to pump so wildly.

Unfortunately, the stories left out a few important parts. Maybe John wasn’t reading the right books, but no story he’d ever read included people who could change into a wolf outside of the full moon cycle, sometimes against their own wishes. And none had mentioned that, even when they were in their human form, werewolves still felt the influence of their animal side. Both things, however, were making his life a whole lot more complicated than it ought to have been.

Although, when it came down to it, what complicated his life the most was that he’d fallen in love with his best friend. His best male friend. His best male friend who, John was well aware of this, had never looked at him, another boy, or even a girl with anything remotely akin to attraction.

Maybe if it had been someone else, someone other than Sherlock, someone who didn’t have a knack for attracting barbed comments from the other students and sometimes even the teachers, someone who had even the slightest interest for potential romantic relationships, someone who wouldn’t prefer collecting interesting data about the most random things over going out to the movies or attending a concert or… doing anything else, really, maybe then it wouldn’t have been so hard for John. But it wasn’t like he had decided to fall in love with him. It had just happened, little by little, until one day, in one of those boring classes, John had blinked out of a daydream about the previous full moon and realized he’d covered an entire notebook page with Sherlock’s name.

That epiphany had been brutal enough that he’d almost shifted, right there in the middle of class. It had taken every bit of self control he possessed to hold on to his human form. Thankfully for him, he’d had some practice holding back the change.

That overwhelming need to shift had been taking over his mind with some regularity in the past year, and every time it had happened because some idiot was making fun of Sherlock, calling him a freak or another one of those horrible nicknames people had for him.

Most of the time, Sherlock didn’t deign to answer; maybe, as he’d told John, he truly didn’t notice or care about it. John, on the other hand, cared more and more, especially since he suspected that Sherlock wasn’t as immune to the sting of those insults as he claimed. If he had been, then surely he wouldn’t have bothered replying, every now and then, his voice always so perfectly calm as he enunciated some uncomfortable but accurate facts to his tormentors, usually about how they were cheating on their boyfriend or girlfriend, or were being cheated on. He’d been punched in the nose three times this term only. And that, of course, only compounded John’s problem.

His human mind told him that he ought to have Sherlock’s back. They weren’t together, sure, but John thought of Sherlock as his best friend, and he knew he was the only friend Sherlock had. If he didn’t have Sherlock’s back, who would? So whenever a sharp word was uttered toward Sherlock, John either glared or told the idiots to shut their mouths; and when it was more than words, he was there to make sure Sherlock didn’t have to fight alone.

His wolf instincts, on the other hand, raged against the whole thing and claimed none of that was enough. Those instincts demanded that he bare his teeth, growl, shift, draw blood. That he protect his pack, even if his pack was just one wolf – even if Sherlock wasn’t a wolf at all. That he protect his mate – and the wolf didn’t mean ‘mate’ as another word for friend. He meant ‘mate’ as in… something John couldn’t think about without blushing. A lot.

Something that would have been nice if it had been true.

Things only got worse after his epiphany. Because at that time, the wolf – John had started to think of him as a separate entity – began giving his opinion about more than protecting Sherlock.

Once, in the cafeteria, when Sherlock sat down at their usual table with a medical diagnostic book rather than a tray and such mundane things as food or water, the wolf growled inside John, and demanded that they go on a hunt and bring back a nice, juicy, still warm and quivering piece of meat for Sherlock, because it just wasn’t right that their mate go hungry. John’s hamburger, as he tried to silence the wolf, tasted dry and overcooked, and he found himself salivating at the thought of raw meat he could kill himself and share with Sherlock. A little nauseated, he got rid of what was left of the burger – and, as a compromise with the wolf, he got an apple for Sherlock. Surprisingly enough, Sherlock took a few bites from it; each crunchy mouthful brought to John’s mind images of tiny bones shattering under large teeth. The wolf growled and complained, but finally fell silent when John pointed out their mate – hrr, _friend_ – was eating something.

Another incident that caused John to see red was unwittingly caused by Molly. Now, John had always liked Molly. She was fun, in a nerdy, overexcited puppy kind of way, and she was prettier than she knew. She was also very, very fond of Sherlock. John had noticed that a while ago. Sherlock, if he had noticed, never said or did anything about it. And Molly didn’t notice that her compliments, home-baked cookies and random little gifts – like that pen she’d bought for him because it matched his eyes – left Sherlock utterly untouched.

The first time she got a little too close to Sherlock after John’s epiphany, she brushed her hand against Sherlock’s arm to get his attention. John stopped walking in the middle of the hallway, unable to care that he was hindering the flow of students. He had to close his eyes to block the sight of that innocent hand. In his mind, the wolf’s voice was louder than ever.

“Mine!” the wolf shouted. “Tear her apart, limb from limb. Teach her a lesson. She’ll never touch him again if she has no hands. Never look at him again if she has no eyes. How dare she touch my mate!”

Said mate – friend – called John’s name with a touch of impatience.

“John? What are you doing? We’re going to be late for chem.”

John opened his eyes to find Sherlock looking at him with a slight frown. Molly was still standing nearby. Over her cute face and white top, John’s mind superimposed torn flesh and blood. A lot of blood. He covered his mouth with his hand and ran to the nearest bathroom.

That same night, not long before bedtime, he received a text.

_Feeling better?  
SH_

Why Sherlock thought it necessary to sign his texts, John had never understood. He did know, on the other hand, why his stomach tried to do somersaults whenever he saw those two letters pop up on his phone.

_Yeah, must have been something I ate._

_Doubtful  
SH_

John frowned at that one word. What was that supposed to mean? Did Sherlock know? Could he know? How could he? It wasn’t like he could read John’s mind and see the bloody images in there. Just thinking about what the wolf wanted to do to Molly, John could feel his dinner coming back up. He typed the first thing that ran through his mind to distract himself.

_U doing anything this weekend? Wanna come by? Got a new video game._

Which, as far as ideas went, was a rather stupid one; it had been years since Sherlock had last consented to pick up a game controller.

_Not sure. I just started a new experiment. I must invert the jars every 30 min exactly to have accurate data.  
SH_

John didn’t bother asking about the experiment; he probably was better off not knowing. But he didn’t need the wolf growling unhappily at the back of his mind to start typing again.

_So… when are you gonna sleep if you need to flip whatever every half hour?_

The answer was predictable.

_Sleep is boring.  
SH_

John clenched his teeth and closed his eyes, trying to silence the wolf. No, he wasn’t going to call Sherlock, let alone go to his place, to order him to get some rest and take care of himself, damn it! He wasn’t going to order Sherlock to do anything. Ever. Because that just wasn’t the kind of relationship they had, and John wasn’t the alpha wolf, and god but this couldn’t go on like this, could it? He had to do something.

He probably didn’t get much more sleep than Sherlock, that night, tossing and turning in his bed the same way he turned the problem in his mind. The same way Sherlock had to be turning those stupid jars.

In the end, he and the wolf agreed on one thing.

He had to tell Sherlock.

The wolf’s opinion on how they should proceed was more of the same: a hunt to show Sherlock he was a good provider, or a challenge to assert his dominance and force Sherlock to submit. And okay, that image had more appeal than John was comfortable with.

John categorically rejected those options, even if the thought of just grabbing those unruly locks of hair with both hands and drawing Sherlock’s mouth to his own grew more intriguing as he grew more tired.

If he hadn’t noticed how useless Molly’s route had proved to be, he might have taken a hint from her and thought of some kind of gift to let Sherlock know how he felt. He would have done that if it had been a girl. Hell, maybe even with another guy. But it was Sherlock, and Sherlock didn’t care about things. Such a demonstration would at best earn John a raised eyebrow, maybe an eye roll, definitely not more.

Not that John thought he’d get anything if he confessed; mostly, he hoped he’d have less trouble controlling the wolf if they both knew for sure what John strongly suspected: Sherlock did not return his feelings. For that matter, John wasn’t even sure Sherlock was able to feel that way. His stomach twisted in knots at that thought, but he knew Sherlock better than he knew anyone else in the world. Deluding himself wouldn’t help anything.

At three minutes to six that morning, he texted Sherlock.

_How’s the experiment going?_

_Disappointingly.  
SH_

_Oh? Did you fall asleep and miss one of your turning times?_

_Of course not.  
I just thought I’d start seeing some results by now.  
It seems my schedule is off.  
SH_

_Speaking of schedule, when’s the last time you had something to eat?_

_I fail to see what that has to do with my experiment.  
SH_

_Who said it had anything to do with your experiment?  
Open your window._

Without waiting for Sherlock to answer, John pocketed his phone and crossed the Holmes’ yard to get to the back of the house. It was a bit too early to knock on the front door, but conveniently enough Sherlock’s room was on the first floor. The window was open when John reached it. Sherlock stood behind it, deep circles under his eyes, a light frown on his brow. He was wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt that seemed a little too small but really soft… and John wasn’t quite sure when he’d started paying attention to what Sherlock wore.

He accepted the box of pastries John was handing him through the window; two coffee cups were balanced on top of it. John climbed in, and took one of the cups.

“Bit early for a social call, isn’t it?” Sherlock said, setting the box down and taking a sip of coffee from the second cup.

John shrugged. “I thought you might use a bit of caffeine if you intend to stay awake much longer.” He pointed at the pastries. “And sugar. Eat something. Doctor’s orders.”

“You’re still quite a few years away from having a right to call yourself that,” Sherlock pointed out, but he did open the box. Store-bought scones weren’t as good as homemade, but Sherlock didn’t seem to mind.

Leaning back against the window sill, John sipped on his coffee, absently looking at the three glass jars on Sherlock’s desk. All three had… something stuck to the sides. John wasn’t sure he wanted to examine them too closely.

“Bad night?” Sherlock asked out of the blue.

John almost jumped. “Huh? What?”

“You look like you need that coffee about as much as I do. Is it the wolf?”

Blinking furiously, John found himself unable to say anything other than, again, “What?”

“The wolf,” Sherlock repeated. “Your wolf, obviously. It seems to have been giving you trouble, lately.”

Without the support of the window at his back, John might have fallen on his ass.

“How… how do you know about that?”

The familiar light came up in Sherlock’s eyes and John couldn’t hide a wince. He was about to get dissected, wasn’t he? Every one of his twitches and words taken apart for Sherlock’s enjoyment, and a grand meaning derived from it all – just like those jars, when the experiment was over.

But seconds passed, and Sherlock said nothing. He took another scone from the box and only after he’d munched on it did he say, “You can tell me, you know. About this kind of things. I’m hardly an expert, but I’d like you tell me.”

John knew Sherlock was talking about the wolf, but those few words gave him the jolt he needed. It was what he’d come for, after all. Delaying wouldn’t make it any easier.

“The wolf… Sherlock, I…”

His hand was shaking so much that he was afraid he’d drop the coffee cup. Pushing away from the window, he set the cup on the desk and wiped his hands on his jeans. When he looked back at Sherlock, he found those clear blue eyes observing him more intently than ever. John swallowed hard. He thought back of those runs under the moon, how strong he always felt in his wolf form – but the wolf was him, and he was a wolf; he might argue with himself about the ‘how’, but in the end he knew he had to tell Sherlock.

“I like you,” he blurted out. His cheeks felt like they were on fire. “You know, _like_ you. A lot.”

Sherlock did not so much as blink.

“No,” he said calmly. “You don’t like me. You love me.”

Which, of course, was Sherlock’s way of saying ‘I know.’

And when he gave John the tiniest of smiles and said, “It took you long enough to figure it out,” John was pretty sure it meant, ‘I love you too.’

Sherlock’s lips tasted like coffee and sugar, and something very much Sherlock. Apparently, the wolf enjoyed the taste as much as John did. Something else they could agree on.


End file.
